Monday, September 20, 2010

Are Bahrain and Kuwait guilty of Islamophobia?

Kuwait has been cracking down on Shiite leaders preaching dissension from mosques right along. Bahrain let things go a little far. "Bahrain's king warned that mosques would be key targets in sweeps against suspected Shiite dissent in his tiny Gulf nation and vital U.S. ally. The first blow was a big one: stripping the citizenship of a powerful Shiite cleric with close ties to Iraq before next month's parliamentary elections."

Could we get away with something like that in Europe or America? Definitely not in America, and while I can't keep up with all the weird happenings in Europe, I doubt it. We have some mosques that are clearly sowing "dissent" against our nation such as the Al-Farooq Mosque in Brooklyn, but for fear of being called Islamophobic we let such mosques go right on sowing dissent and sedition. We are helpless. We can't do a thing. And if someone not in a position of American political, business, university, media power, like Terry Jones, tries to do something to oppose Islamic acts of sedition, at least as he seems them, a giant hand reaches down from the ethereal reaches of American power to squash him.

But look again at the article. Assume for a minute that leaders in Bahrain and Kuwait know a bit more about Islam than we do and then ask why they can go ahead and proscribe mosque activity while we in American cannot. Perhaps they know something we don't. Islam, as evidenced by the code of Sharia, has a strong political element. Thus, it is possible to oppose a mosque if it engages in seditious political teaching without rejecting Islam. Bahrain and Kuwait are not renouncing Islam, but they are opposing the political actions of Shiite mosques.

Did the offended Shiite leaders accuse Bahrain of Islamophobia? No, of course not, only we in the West can be that silly. They accused Bahrain of a Civil Rights violation: "'This is the worst crackdown on human rights,' said Mohammed al-Tajer, the lawyer representing 15 of the 23 coup suspects. 'We are all banned from talking about the events of the last few weeks, but I can't keep quiet about these violations.'"

We in Europe and America don't know what to do with our Muslims who cause trouble. We make believe no trouble is being caused on the one hand and tremble at offending them because of the trouble that will cause on the other. If a Muslim goes on a killing spree, you won't find that he was empowered to do it by Muslim teaching. The media looks for psychological reasons. But the king of Bahrain hasn't our Western hang-ups: "King Hamad told a cabinet meeting Sunday that Bahrain would not be a 'spring board' for unrest in the region."